Tuesday, June 02, 2009

A Response to Anonymous, Re: Stealing

Dear Anonymous,

Very recently on my blog, you left a string of strongly-worded comments on my entry It's Not Cheating! Also: I hate Pirates, a post that talked about the disturbing rise of books being downloaded illegally online. And I can only say, wow. SO MUCH WRONGNESS. But, really, though, this is wrongness that should be discussed, explained, and corrected, because damn, it's ignorant.

First Comment:

AnimeJune You really rock girl!

"WOW this makes me angry! Up to HUNDREDS of books given away without a single royalty? WHAT THE HELL?"

Well said!! Just like the ?????? that are swapped and reswapped in book clubs, sold and resold in garage sales, sold and resold in second-hand book stores, BORROWED & BORROWED & BORROWED & BORROWED FROM A PUBLIC LIBRARY, lent to friends, family members and coworkers.

YES my dears - Given away without a SINGLE ROYALTY? WHAT THE HELL?

So what's really your point? I guess you guys are simply just comfortable with legalized 'stealing' then? As long as the law says its OK to enjoy creative content without having to pay for it, then 'I'm an honest person if I used those means appears to be your and yes Pamela Clare's mentality' - swaps, library, second-hand book, and God don't try to stop me from sharing a book with my friend. Right!!

The next time any of you return anything to the store that wasn't damaged or spoiled - eg the dress that you wore only that one time; the shoe that just doesn't go right with that suit but you only figured that out after you had wore it; the meal that you didn't like; the book that you read the first few pages of or just skimmed through and decided it was not for you and I can go on - I guess you weren't stealing eh - you just used it for a time for free. Right. HELLO!

Yeah put a block on the blog!

Have a great day y'all.

Wow, I don't think I can respond to this whole passage all at once, so let me take it paragraph by paragraph, line by line:

AnimeJune You really rock girl! Why thank you.

"WOW this makes me angry! Up to HUNDREDS of books given away without a single royalty? WHAT THE HELL?" Quotation marks? Who are you quoting? I've been through my post and the comments of others and this sentence never comes up. Hmmmm.

Well said!! Just like the ?????? that are swapped and reswapped in book clubs, sold and resold in garage sales, sold and resold in second-hand book stores, BORROWED & BORROWED & BORROWED & BORROWED FROM A PUBLIC LIBRARY, lent to friends, family members and coworkers.

YES my dears - Given away without a SINGLE ROYALTY? WHAT THE HELL?

So what's really your point? I guess you guys are simply just comfortable with legalized 'stealing' then? As long as the law says its OK to enjoy creative content without having to pay for it, then 'I'm an honest person if I used those means appears to be your and yes Pamela Clare's mentality' - swaps, library, second-hand book, and God don't try to stop me from sharing a book with my friend. Right!!

Sweetie, let me inform you on royalties - authors are paid by the COPIES of books that are sold, not the number of times they are read. Why? Because there is NO way outside of a copy of 1984 to effectively track how many times a book is read. So there's that.

Secondly, when you buy a book, an author gets a royalty and you get a piece of property that is yours to do with as you wish. You can set it on fire. You can eat it. You can do whatever you want to it. You can sell it. You can even lend it out - why? Because whatever you do with it, there is still only one copy that has been legally paid for. The author already received their cut out of the purchase of that property.

However, what the law says you cannot do is make copies of what you have bought. No one has a problem with you lending out a book - but there is a problem if you make a bunch of photocopies of that book and give them away - why? Because now you aren't dealing with one copy of a book that has been legally paid for. You have created copies and are distributing material that hasn't been paid for.

When you put a book up on the internet for download, every time someone downloads it they are automatically making an illegal copy. This isn't the equivalent of something like Paperbackswap.com or a used book store (that sells copies that were at one time legally purchased). Downloading is stealing, because now there are copies of a book in existence that have not been paid for.

And it is certainly not the equivalent of borrowing books from a library. I've sent an e-mail to Wendy the Super Librarian to help me out on this because I feel I want to have the most informed argument possible when I tell you that BORROWING BOOKS FROM A LIBRARY IS NOT STEALING, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. It's certainly not legalized stealing.

And why? Let me explain it again to you - libraries LEGALLY PURCHASE all their materials. Authors support libraries hardcore (why else would the Romance Writers of America have an entire day planned at their National Conference for the support and celebration of librarians?). Authors get excellent royalties from libraries because libraries LEGALLY PURCHASE copies of their books, often several copies, and in the more expensive hardcover format if at all possible (because they last longer). By legally purchasing those copies, these books become the library's property and it is entirely their right to lend them out to whomever they wish at their own discretion. And the author gets paid for every title they acquire.

The next time any of you return anything to the store that wasn't damaged or spoiled - eg the dress that you wore only that one time; the shoe that just doesn't go right with that suit but you only figured that out after you had wore it; the meal that you didn't like; the book that you read the first few pages of or just skimmed through and decided it was not for you and I can go on - I guess you weren't stealing eh - you just used it for a time for free. Right. HELLO!

Lending books from a library and buying books from a used book store or lending books is not the same thing as stealing. There are slightly blurred lines in some situations with dresses and shoes, I agree - you've pointed them out. But that doesn't apply to libraries and used book stores and people who lend books: because all of these have acquired their books legally through ways that give the authors money. Learn the difference - books are creative property, that is true, but when they are bought they also become personal property and people also have rights over their own personal property. HELLO!

Please, if you're so informed of the ways of the world, explain HOW people are supposed to know how many times a book has been read and identify the people who have read these books to make sure they pay up in the way you think they should? Please, do explain, I'm sure we're all listening intently.

Anonymous continues:

AnimeJune you really rock girl!

'Why? BECAUSE THERE ARE ALREADY PLACES WHERE YOU CAN GET BOOKS FOR FREE, THEY ARE CALLED LIBRARIES. YOU GET BOOKS FOR FREE AND THE AUTHORS AND MUSICIANS GET PAID AND EVERYONE WINS.'

Ahem - just let's ask the authors. Do you collect royalties every time someone borrows your book from that FREE place called the public library?

Does anyone at all ever collect royalties whenever a media item is borrowed from the library - music CD, DVD etc?

Educate yourselves and admit that all you library users are taking bread out of your favorite authors mouth. And how generous of them to allow you to do it as long as you agree with them that those other people who use those internet libraries are dishonest SOBs.

Does anyone have a brain to even acknowledge the contradiction here?

Okay, so Anonymous here is repeating himself or herself (I assume it's the same person because they have very distinct style of writing), but there is one passage I need to deal with personally:

Educate yourselves and admit that all you library users are taking bread out of your favorite authors mouth. And how generous of them to allow you to do it as long as you agree with them that those other people who use those internet libraries are dishonest SOBs.

Really, Anonymous, EDUCATE YOURSELF ABOUT THE RIGHTS OF PERSONAL PROPERTY. I've already explained that authors receive royalties from every copy that the libraries purchase of their book (and that afterward the book becomes the personal property of the library).

Libraries don't just lend out books - they also promote books and reading, and preserve books. People who find an author as a "lucky dip" at a library goes on to buy the author's books for themselves - that's promotion. That's been the case for me with Laura Lee Guhrke, Sophia Nash, and Jo Goodman. I borrowed their books at the library, enjoyed the hell out of them, and went and bought their books. Also, libraries preserve books. They're the reason there are still copies of Bibles from the 1600s and first editions of Pride & Prejudice that exist in good condition for people to look at and read.

And internet libraries? What do you mean, internet libraries? Downloading books from the internet is not the same as a library - one commenter did theorize that people living in places where bookstores and libraries are hard and expensive to come by use downloading sites for that reason - to make "lucky dips" without paying the exorbitant price of importing a physical copy of a book they might end up hating.

But there is a significant difference - every copy a library lends out has been bought and paid for. The very act of downloading a book from the internet CREATES a copy that is ILLEGAL because it HASN'T been paid for. Even if the originator of the book file bought her book legally - she's not distributing one copy that she's paid for - she's making a THOUSAND copies of a book when she's only paid for ONE. See the difference?

Consider yourself educated.

Anonymous' next comment was pretty much a repetition of their previous comments, so let's look at the delightful message after that:

I'm quoting you again AnimeJune

'Writers do not make a lot of money, and whether or not they get published again depends on their numbers of legitimate, tallied sales. Publishers don't care if 300 copies of an author's book have been downloaded online if only 50 copies have been bought in real life - because the publishers don't get money from those 300 books and they only publish writers who are financial viable.

That means the authors you love to read might not be picked up again by publishers because they're not making enough sales - and that means no more great novels from those authors.'

Shouldn't the authors be leveraging to have greater control with the publishing houses then? As you say the publishers don't care.

Turns out that the author actually only gets about 1/5th of the sale price of the book - all the rest goes to the publisher, advertising, media etc. And darling these starving authors are quite content with that!

So for argument sake. Let's say a book sells for $5.00. 1/5 means the author gets $1in their pocket whereas the consumer puts out 5 times that much!!!!!

Authors need to start viewing their readers as their bread and butter and not their copyrighted content as such.

If I am to empathize with the plight of the poor authors, then maybe I would be less inclined to download a book from the internet if I could really believe that a much greater percentage of what goes out of my pocket goes directly to them.

I seriously object to paying 4/5th the price of a book to people (publishers and associated support industry) who themselves don't respect the creative process or the amount of work you and these authors say they put into writing a book. As you and the authors say - the publishers only care about the amount of $$ they collected, very little consideration is given to the merit of the work.

When authors start to really respect their creative content and demand better conditions, start marketing their books themselves etc., then maybe I'd be inclined to do the bleeding heart deal for them.

Um, wow. I'm going to have to break this down again:Shouldn't the authors be leveraging to have greater control with the publishing houses then? As you say the publishers don't care.

Turns out that the author actually only gets about 1/5th of the sale price of the book - all the rest goes to the publisher, advertising, media etc. And darling these starving authors are quite content with that!And HOW would they do that exactly? Publishing is a business. What the publisher puts out has to make money, or else they won't be able to afford to publish more books. Seems simple enough to me. Also, in your mind - it's okay to steal from authors if they "are quite content" with not getting a larger cut of their book? How does that work?

I seriously object to paying 4/5th the price of a book to people (publishers and associated support industry) who themselves don't respect the creative process or the amount of work you and these authors say they put into writing a book. As you and the authors say - the publishers only care about the amount of $$ they collected, very little consideration is given to the merit of the work.Boo hoo, little child.

You OBJECT to paying for people who aren't the author? Well, I OBJECT to thieves - because when you're reading a finished, published novel - you're not only benefiting off of the author's work, but off the work of many, many other people within the publishing industry!

When you buy a book, you're not buying the author's story handwritten and unabridged on looseleaf - you're buying a BOOK, which means you're also buying the paper, binding, and ink that the publishers have paid for. You're paying the printers who put the physical words on the paper. You're paying the marketers and advertisers who brought this book to your attention in the first place. You're paying the artists and designers who created the beautiful cover. You're paying the editors who made the sure the writing flowed smoothly and helped the pacing and got rid of typos and errors and made sure the presentation of the margins and spacing make the text easy and pleasant to read. You're even paying the artist who owns the copyright on the typeface! They have ALL put in work and effort into that book you're holding, and they deserve to be paid for the goods and services they have provided.

Think of when you pay to see a movie - your money isn't just going to the screenwriter whose story you didn't like or the actors who were terrible or the director who's a hack. You're also paying the salaries of the lighting designers and the costume designers and the grips and electricians and crew members who all contributed to the final product.

And when you download a scanned book for free, you're not just cheating the author - you're cheating all the people who helped make the final product of the novel itself. I didn't mean that publishers don't respect the creative process at all - but publishing is a business, and if a book makes no money, then they simply can't afford to keep publishing. It sucks, but it's true. While I agree money shouldn't be the all-encompassing, most important thing - they can't ignore its importance if they want to continue to be a viable business.

Finally, I must deal with this little gem:

When authors start to really respect their creative content and demand better conditions, start marketing their books themselves etc., then maybe I'd be inclined to do the bleeding heart deal for them.And your "bleeding heart deal" - is that supposed to mean you paying money in return for goods and services that you have received, one of the most fundamental economic laws? Cry me a river, dude. Your entire justification, er, I mean argument is based on your ignorance of the publishing industry, the rights of personal property, the purpose of libraries, and the production of books. Let me see if I can boil down your essential argument:

9 comments:

You've pretty much covered it all AnimeJune. Another important thing to consider is that Dead Tree Books do not have an infinite shelf life. They get worn out. Libraries routinely discard worn out editions, and purchase brand new copies when possible (hey, even we can't order new copies of titles that are declared out of print). Digital copies found on file-sharing sites? Yeah, don't get worn out. Copies can be made and distributed tens of thousands of times over. Which makes it wrong....and as you pointed out....illegal.

I purchase thousands of books a year at my job - and multiple copies. I have a theory I'm actually keeping Danielle Steel in business (yeah, it's my fault). And you bring up an excellent point about library lending spurring sales. This happens all the time. I've seen it with my own reading, and have heard countless anecdotes from others. Heck, I purchase Tess Gerritsen books, brand new and in hard cover no less (!), because I first discovered her by checking out an audio book copy of The Surgeon at the library.

Well done, AnimeJune. The funniest part was about the use of libraries being stealing. BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anonymous. If you wrote a book, I have no doubt whatsoever that you would take the extreme opposite viewpoint on all your statements. Your opinions are molded around justifying what YOU WANT TO DO, not around what makes sense. And the sarcasm doesn't make the argument any more appealing.

Folks who truly approve of book pirating on the large scale it's being done today have #brainfail. That or magical bugs up their asses that prevent their ears from working. I am beginning to think there is no talking reason to the unreasonable.

I think, for the most part, these small time crooks know damn well it's not okay to pirate books, but they don't give a crap because there are no repercussions. Even my idiot inlaws know it's illegal to download pirated music, movies, books and tv. They just don't CARE because it means they can spend their money on other things like beer and drugs and tanning beds and new cars.

The folks who steal digital books tend to be more literate than my inlaws, though, which means they're more of a pain in the ass in their way because they like to troll internet sites and brag/complain/bluster/flame/etc.

Borders (or Barnes and Noble, or the independent bookstore near you) gets $3.60 off a sale of my book, to pay the people who put it out on the shelf, to compensate Sue Grimshaw for reading the books and figuring out who to buy and who to put at the front of the stores, and to keep the shelves clean and full of other new books. If we didn't keep paying these bookstores, they would go out of business, or they would stop carrying certain kinds of books.

I get $0.54. My agent gets $.09. (She deserves it.)

This leaves my publisher $3.76--which they use to create cover art, to pay for paper and ink and the press to print the book on, to do photo shoots and use pretty fonts on the cover, to pay my editor and her assistant and the copyeditor.

When you account for all those things, the publisher probably grabs a profit of maybe $.50 on a book.

Less, because if I don't sell enough books to earn back my advance, the publisher has essentially given me more money than I've earned royalties on.

So they're taking on a lot of risk in a way I am not.

And none of the people I mention above--my editor, her assistant, the copy-editors, the art directors, the photographers--none of them are overpaid. This isn't really a fat cat industry.

People are in it for the love. Yes, it's a business--but nearly everyone in publishing is smart enough to make a ton of money if they'd chosen a different path in life. It's a business because you have to eat. But it works as a business because a lot of people put a lot of time into a project for not a whole lot of money.

Thanks for sticking up for those people, AnimeJune, because they get the short end of the stick a lot.

Wendy --> Danielle Steel? Well, I guess SOMEONE has to pay for the giant ballgowns she is forced to wear on the back of all her novels, *lol*

But yes - excellent points. I would never have discovered a lot of authors if I hadn't gone to the library - especially Jo Goodman. "The Price of Desire" had a blah cover and a blah title - I would have completely passed it over in a bookstore (even with the good reviews it was getting). But at a library where I could try it for free? That's when I ended up finding one of my very favourite authors.

Vorkosigrrl --> This is exactly the impression I got from the commenter - that he or she is a regular downloader of books but is getting antsy now that bloggers and romance authors are starting to make their anger about it known on the web.

The commenter said NOTHING that argued that downloading books isn't actually stealing - their entire argument was a justification for why authors should shut up about it. But, if this commenter is actually bothered enough to go on the internet and repeatedly try and justify that sort of behaviour, it does demonstrate that maybe they're starting to get the idea that stealing is wrong and the authors they take from don't like it. Which is a step in the right direction.

Laura and Tris --> thank you! I can't take all the credit for the library info - thank Wendy!

Writer the Cat --> I used to be really into anime, and it was always a point of contention between me and some other fans that I wouldn't download anime episodes or buy cheaper bootlegged copies - I preferred to rent them, watch them on English TV, or actually buy the (sadly very expensive) DVDs. Many used the excuse that "Oh, but this show isn't released in Canada yet" or "Oh, but the North American DVDs are so expensive" when really, I think their mindset is, "I'm stealing from people who live 3000 miles away in Japan. What are they going to do about it?"

The writer of the internet comic Penny Arcade put it best when he said that the anonymity of the internet has led to a lot of shady and asshat behaviour. Just as people on messageboards can act like idiots because no one can figure out who they are (and they have an audience), piracy on the internet abounds because people who would normally refrain from real-life shoplifting are tempted by the anonymity of internet stealing. Part of it's the anonymity, part of it is the human disconnect - I think it's psychologically harder to steal a stereo when the guy who's making a living selling that stereo is standing and breathing ten feet away.

But stealing over the internet? Where you never have to see the face or know the history of the people you're taking from? That makes it so much easier.

Maria --> Huzzah! Library cards are awesome - and if you're in St. Albert, may I suggest getting "The Alberta Library Card"? It's free and can give you access to any of 265 libraries in our province, it's just connected to your regular public library card - even university materials, which is great for me and my research. Librarians rock.

Courtney --> WOW. Thank you for breaking it down so well! I had no idea (54 cents??? Aaaaagh...). But it's the same for any arts industry, too - remember when they made those "don't pirate movies" commercials where it wouldn't be a director or an actor telling you not to steal, but a makeup artist or an special-effects technician? Lots of people started stealing movies and music on the internet with the idiotic "oh, Spielberg can afford it, lol" argument - forgetting that they're taking money away from the invisible people in the business - the film editors, cinematographers, crew members, songwriters, musicians, sound technicians, etc - and those are the ones who don't get a 50% cut of the film's back end profits.